About Ems

My name is Ems Coombes and I am the founder and project manager (and occasional facilitator) of Strictly Collaborative.

I had a brain haemorrhage and stroke when I was 17 and for 6 years after my op I didn't know that I was disabled, even though I used a walking stick.

I had never met or spoken to a Disabled person before, let alone worked with someone with a disability (to my knowledge). I, like most non-disabled individuals, thought very little about disabled people. They didn't really appear on my radar. Then I went to Dartington College of Arts, a VERY inaccessible university but with helpful, hospitable people. You find with aged buildings that accessabilitiy is a difficult thing to achieve.

In my 2nd year I did a project with the community of St Anthony and St Elias(?) - the aim of which was to integrate mentally and physically disabled individuals into the community (I met some very interesting characters) - through the clients I saw myself and realised that I was like them but a little more lucid. Now, although I understood who I was I ddn't know how I fitted into this world.

SO.. the next 3 years were selfishly devoted to me -

• What it meant to have a stroke?
• What was disability?
• How could the arts help?
• Was there such a thing as Disabled Role Models?

This is when I discovered DISABILITY ARTS companies and loads of organisational theatre and dance. Not to mention the tonnes of disabled individuals that were telling their stories and raising their voices to the roof,

A GROUP OF BEAUTIFULLY STRONG, VOCAL AND FABBY DISABLED ROLE MODELS THAT KNEW WHAT THEY WANTED AND FOUND A VOICE THROUGH THEIR ART!!

After university I did quite a few Arts or Disability related jobs but its difficult when my brain has the tendency to explode when it wants and 'people' (when I say people I mean the discriminatory, disablist, non-disabled people that expect us to work in supermarkets and pity us - thinking that we have no expectations and can't achieve our dreams - Eradicating this mindset was one of the many reasons I set up Strictly Collaborative.

I want people to see that there is no reason to pity us - that non-disabled (not able bodied - we have to get into the language so that we are taken seriously) can work WITH disabled AS EQUALS.

STRICTLY COLLABORATIVE IS DISABLED LED - Very Important


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This company is DISABLED LEAD - it is very important to realise that we can achieve our potential and fulfil our ideas and dreams. We utilise both disabled artists as well as non-disabled artists - We DO NOT discriminate!!

Ability does not depend on ability!!

About Claire

Claire Summers is Strictly Collaborative's General Manager and occasional facilitator.

Claire originally trained as a dancer at Merseyside Dance and Drama Centre in her home town of Liverpool. Sustaining an injury towards the end of her first year and told she would never dance professionally Claire turned her back on the arts for an exciting career in Administration! Which eventually lead her into the Royal Navy and to Plymouth and then by chance back into the Theatre.

Claire returned to dance taking a teaching position at Attitudes School of Dance in Plymouth after qualifying with the International Dance Teachers Association in 2007. Furthering her studies she began a Certificate in Education at the University of Plymouth which was the first time the words 'Inclusive Practice' entered her radar. Wanting to find out more she came across Candoco Dance Company who were running a one day introduction to inclusive practice as part of ADAPT (Accessing Dance and Performance Training). "This first meeting changed everything for me, the way I taught, the way I viewed dance and the way I viewed myself as a dancer, for the first time in my dysfunctional dance career I felt I had found a place where I belong and where it was ok to be me, to be different. I wasn't trying to fit someone else's ideal of what a dancer should look like and move like."

Claire returned to university in 2008 to study for a BA in Dance Theatre and is lucky enough to be taught and mentored by Adam Benjamin the co-founder of Candoco dance Company. Claire is also an Associate Youth Practitioner with Moving Bodies, Candoco Dance Company's regional development programme, as well as being one of the Plymouth Dance, dance and disability practitioners and a performer for Symiotic Dance Theatre Company.

"Being in this job role I am able to use all of my skills as both a dance and theatre practitioner and as an administrator and manager. I really believe in this company and have loved being part of its growth over the last year, and I look forward to being part of that continued growth seeing the company and its members go from strength to strength. We have some exciting plans for the company over the next few years and I love that I am a part of that. What is important to me, and what drives me, is the people, I have never worked with such a lovely group of young people in such a warm accepting and creative environment."

About Kevin

Kevin obtained a 1st class degree in Theatre and Media Drama and Philosophy, before training as an actor in London. His work today includes acting, directing, facilitation, tutoring and project management. Acting work includes Theatre and Film, two UK and Ireland Tours, site specific, Edinburgh and London Fringe. He has had a versatile background working in subtle camera work aswell as the larger theatre spectacle, specialising in Physical theatre, he can take on character roles but frequently has been cast in lead roles . Kevin has just started to get work as a presenter for various internet companies and is quickly developing his presenter skills Credits include: Noel Coward in Ha Ha Ha, Mr Darcy in Pride And Prejudice, Hippolytus in Hippolytus, Malcolm in Macbeth, Petruchio in The Taming Of The Shrew, Teiresias in The Bacchae and Anton Schill in The Visit, The Red Power Ranger for Disney/Jetix and most recently the Old man in One Small Step One Giant Leap, at the Royal William Yard, for the Barbican theatre Previous community based projects include Forum, Invisible Theatre, Reminiscence and Educational Work with Proteus Theatre, Forum Theatre Cymru, Ladder To The Moon, the Barbican Theatre Plymouth, Theatre Royal Plymouth, Futures Theatre Company, and Half Moon Young Peoples Theatre. As a director he has worked for Theatre Royal Plymouth, Stiltskin Theatre, Bridie Productions, Agog Theatre, Mac-A-Dam Theatre and Ugly Theatre. Productions include Faustus, Jekyll and Hyde, Tasty Tales, Adult Child/Dead Child, The Bedbug, Gogmagog and various new devised works. In 2009 he has been asked by the Theatre Royal to direct a new play Blackout and Peter Weiss' Marat/Sade. At present Kevin works regularly at the Barbican Theatre Plymouth as Artistic Project Manager for the In The Flesh Festival, as well as a Movement director for Theatre Royal Plymouth, and freelance guest lecturer at University of Plymouth and University College Marjons. As a theatre practitioner and workshop leader he is extremely versatile but specialises in work influenced by Antonin Artaud, and Jerzy Grotowski, past workshops have included: Shakespeare, Poetry In Performance, Voice, Artaud, Grotowski, Stanislavsky, Brecht, Devising Theatre, Directing Theatre, Forum Theatre, Commedia Dell'Arte, Grand Guignol (Theatre of Horror), Audition Technique, Mask, Greek Tragedy, Laban, impro, physical theatre and specific text based work.